Expert echoes lungfish spillway criticism

An ecology expert says a spillway to protect fish at Paradise Dam, south-west of Bundaberg in south-east Queensland, should have never been built.

The $20 million device was built in 2005 to allow lungfish to swim safely past the dam wall.

However, a recent SunWater report shows more than 150 lungfish died in 22 days because of the spillway.

Macquarie University's Professor Jean Joss says the threatened species never stood a chance in the badly designed structure.

"They're very vulnerable and threatened but because they have such a restricted habitat they really only occur naturally in the Mary and Burnett rivers," professor Joss said.

"I don't think the State Government is going to do anything about it right now but it really should, it [the spillway] should come down."

She says the design is a potential death sentence for the fish.

"Paradise Dam wiped out a very large percentage of their existing spawning areas, the Burnett River is quite a narrow river anyway, I mean they can't very well mount a dam wall and what they've put in to get the lungfish from the lower regions of the river to the upper into the dam is not particularly appropriate but it was very expensive," she said.